HD-DVD cancels CES press conference
by Jem Alexander 
{ Jan 5th 2008 at 12:00PM }
We're not the type to start going all "Mission Accomplished", but this certainly feels like a turning point in the format war. Blu-Ray's newfound support from Warner Bros and New Line Cinema means that huge future releases such as The Lord of The Rings and I Am Legend will only be available on Blu. This year's CES is definitely one to watch.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Nikko @ Jan 5th 2008 12:05PM
Take that sucker HD-DVD! damn Microsoft wants to rule over everything HAHA!.
Eli @ Jan 6th 2008 4:17PM
Microsoft's VC-1 video codec is a mandatory part of both HD DVD and Bluray so in a sense, they win either way. It's just the customer that loses with Bluray.
Imbro @ Jan 6th 2008 4:12AM
@Eli
Almost correct. Microsoft allso have a lot invested in hd-dvds dynamic content, HDi. This is as far as I know, running windows CE in every hd-dvd device so far (not sure if it's actually mandatory though).
Allso this is not at all a loss for the 99% of movie fans, as they can now (almost risk free)finally get their hd player without worrying about choosing wrong.
chillski @ Jan 5th 2008 2:11PM
forgot i am legend, how about we finally get THE MATRIX box set in blu rayy !!!!!
jae29one @ Jan 5th 2008 12:10PM
Another 2 more blows like this and its a wrap!!!
Blu Ray all the way..
Fohacidal @ Jan 5th 2008 12:09PM
It was just the pre-CES conference its not like the actual one is being canceled, but it is definitely a flat tire on HD-DVDs road to success which at this point is looking very bleak.
Ed @ Jan 5th 2008 12:23PM
This is great! They're too ashamed to show their face in public now that they only have one major studio, and will soon likely have none.
jitty @ Jan 5th 2008 6:43PM
A visual representation for HD-DVD's roadmap to success:
http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/9565/hdbn7.jpg
Andy @ Jan 5th 2008 12:15PM
More good news. Has anyone else noticed how much better Blu-Ray news is compared to PS3 news?
Tim Parsons @ Jan 5th 2008 1:18PM
neither is dependant on sales of the other,. PS3 includes a Blu-Ray player and uses it as it's Media it ends there,. SONY is a major backer yes ,. but no matter how good or bad Blu-Ray sales are it won't effect PS3,. and vice versa,. Cause I seriously doutb people are buying a PS3 just for Blu-Ray(those who do no doutb are interested in it for gaming as well)
Once HD-DVD admits their defeat though and Blu-Ray takes the stage alone,. All SONY has to do though is Give a Big PR/AD push on Blu-Ray in the PS3,. and it currently being the cheapest device that plays Blu-Ray and it'll rocket regardless
B1gC72 @ Jan 5th 2008 3:50PM
i dont know Tim. i know a few people who were contemplating buying PS3's just for Blu-ray movies. they could be isolated cases but since the PS3 is the cheapest and most functional Blu-ray player (complete with constant updates), why not?
nihillasohen @ Jan 5th 2008 12:21PM
I wouldn't be suprised if they cancel the real one too. It sounds like a really good penny arcade comic strip.
(M$, toshiba, and universal checking their watches for the time. 5 minutes before CES conferance)
Toshiba: "Paramounts been in the restroom a really long time!"
Universal: "I'll go check on him to see if he needs anthing!"
nihillasohen @ Jan 5th 2008 12:24PM
i wouldn't be suprised if they cancel the real one too. It sounds like a really good penny arcade comic strip.
(M$, toshiba, and universal checking their watches for the time. 5 minutes before CES conferance)
Toshiba: "Paramounts been in the restroom a really long time!"
Universal: "I'll go check on him to see if he needs anthing!"
Sauvage @ Jan 5th 2008 12:26PM
Xbox Ultimate to have Blu-Ray Drive, confirmed!
jae29one @ Jan 5th 2008 12:34PM
@ #7 Ok and that means what??
nihillasohen @ Jan 5th 2008 12:40PM
I think he is being sarcastic
Otsego_Undead @ Jan 5th 2008 7:53PM
And Sony will built it and call it the Playstation 3.
Don @ Jan 5th 2008 12:44PM
Checkmate.
PETEJOZ @ Jan 5th 2008 1:04PM
M-M-M-M-MONSTER KILL!!!!
Tim Parsons @ Jan 5th 2008 1:12PM
DIE HD-DVD DIE!!!!!!!!!
Da_Wigsplidda @ Jan 5th 2008 1:17PM
This is a beautiful day for blu ray. i've been waiting to see the destruction of hd dvd for a while. hopefully paramount will eventually rejoin our side cause i wanna see transformers in blu ray. i agree with what Tim Parson said "die hd dvd die"
Tim Parsons @ Jan 5th 2008 1:23PM
Yeha that really pissed me off Paramount going HD-DVD at the last minute ,. pissed off Transformer Director Micheal Bay too,. but they did say that the deal is until till some time in 2008,. then it's open season,.
It's funny cuase at the Blockbuster here,. they have like 50 or so Blu-ray movies(few copies of each ,.typical) but only One lonely HD-DVD movie and only 2 copies of it,. TRANSFORMERs,. LMAO
Can't wait for this to finally end then Blu-Ray movie prices will drop down to DVD prices pretty fast as will hardware prices cause more people will be buying alot of people right now are still waiting for one to win,. nobody wants to be stuck with people saygin "ewww you got a betamax"
bs6268d @ Jan 5th 2008 1:27PM
well I think the war is COMing to a end we had a good fight
Go blu
bs6268d @ Jan 5th 2008 1:28PM
well I think the war is COMing to a end we had a good fight
Go blu
Mark @ Jan 5th 2008 1:38PM
Red power node destroyed. Blu wins the game...
Efeez1986 @ Jan 5th 2008 3:40PM
LOL Good one, i didn't think of that.
Akamaru @ Jan 5th 2008 4:15PM
I see what you did there.
Livi70590 @ Jan 5th 2008 1:51PM
woohoo!
Chris Rah Osiris @ Jan 5th 2008 1:58PM
Things are definitely headed downhill for HD dud
Kxpuc @ Jan 5th 2008 2:08PM
in semi-related topic some Best Buys have been putting out 3:10 to Yuma and Sunshine out starting yesterday instead of 1-8-08
nick @ Jan 5th 2008 2:13PM
lol this really isnt very good. A market without competition will not be pressured to produce quality products. if sony is left alone at the top of the HD movie disk format and has no compitition they can produce a shitty product and it will be the only option for the consumers. i hope HD DVD survives so both companies will be trying to beat the other by producing some really great things.
nihillasohen @ Jan 5th 2008 2:39PM
You are right about having competition in the marketplace being a good thing. You are wrong about the lack of it.
Movie makers, computer manufactures, Blu-ray player manufactures, and retail stores all compete with one another.
If you really wanna call the monopoly foul, then talk to M$ or a gas company.
MrStorm @ Jan 5th 2008 3:00PM
A Single format now is actually better for the public than two because it’s a media playback and storage format. The increased sales will allow standardisation which in turn will drive costs down allowing a cheaper product. The initial development competition with HD-DVD would have helped make blu-ray what it is becoming now. A single format also allows consumers to have a greater deal of information about a single format and not be confused by the two competing and discovering after purchasing all the kit its going to be useless 6 months down the line! (Unlucky HD-DVD adopters, the risk you take when you’re an early adopter in a market!)
And for the poster above that also said that PS3 and Blu-ray sales do not affect each other, this isn’t really true. They are complementary products and therefore will affect each other to some extent. People have bought PS3's to play movies and I myself bought my console purely for gaming needs and now have a collection of 3 Blu-Ray movies. I had not planned to buy these at all initially!
Long Live the Blu!
wonway01 @ Jan 5th 2008 2:25PM
No compition? Every company will make BD players and compete for business just like they do now for DVD players. No big diffrence. Its not like Sony will be the only producer of players. If you meant something else please explain.
Broken Haiku @ Jan 5th 2008 2:52PM
Although I have a PS3 I really don't care which one wins out in the end, just as long as this ridiculous sandbox war ends. It hurts us as consumers.
Efeez1986 @ Jan 5th 2008 3:42PM
Blu ray is better than hd dvd anyway. Hell, the cases even look better!lol
Efeez1986 @ Jan 5th 2008 3:47PM
You guys should see all the xbox 360 fanboy posts, their hilarious. Their saying how they don't care, and blah blah blah. Everybody cares about watching movie in hi def, just like everybody cares about playing games in hi def.
Foxhound @ Jan 5th 2008 4:46PM
media format should be without competition, like now we cant see some movies on BD, and cant see some on HDDVD, thats because of competition, they just release the discs, and the competition is done by movie studios, and hardware manufactures are another story too
RMF @ Jan 5th 2008 5:58PM
"Everybody cares about watching movie in hi def, just like everybody cares about playing games in hi def."
Bullshit. I don't care about watching movies in HD. DivX/Xvid all the way for me. I'm not willing to spend 25 Euro's on a movie regardless of the resolution. And to the guy who said that having only one format will bring the prices down...how do you work that one out? The reason that BR discs are so expensive is due to the expensive manufacturing process and high rate of discs that don't pass quality control.
Wake me up in 3 or 4 years. By that time the prices may really have come down...either that or both formats will be gone in favour of the next big thing.
MrStorm @ Jan 5th 2008 6:14PM
So you really dont think that economies of scale and TQM come into play at all here? Larger the number of sales of Blu-Ray discs the higher the quality and cheaper the price in theory. It is after all the Japanese that believe in learning by doing.
Elsnerma @ Jan 5th 2008 6:41PM
"I don't care about watching movies in HD"
You're definitely in the minority here. Home theater systems are the reason why less and less people go out to the movies, and therefore why movie studios make most of their money on DVD sales. With HD films at home, the impact will be even larger.
As for the Xvid/Divx comment, I assume you're referring to piracy. If the only movies you watch are the ones you download illegally, then that's pretty sad.
RMF @ Jan 5th 2008 6:20PM
"So you really dont think that economies of scale and TQM come into play at all here? Larger the number of sales of Blu-Ray discs the higher the quality and cheaper the price in theory. It is after all the Japanese that believe in learning by doing."
Oh I do but not by much, but the fact remains that the price of BR media isn't coming down anytime soon no matter how many discs that they can shift. They need to sort out their problems with fabrication if we're to see the prices come down.
Just for the record, I own a PS3 and a 360...I do not have an HD DVD player. Neither of the 2 mean anything to me. I do not believe that either HD-DVD or Blu Ray are here to stay for very long.
MrStorm @ Jan 5th 2008 6:33PM
I agree that they may not last aslong as the DVD has but also the next stop is Direct Downloads so to speak but here in the UK major investment needs to be put into the internet infrastructure to make this even remotely feasible. I also like having something tangible to hold, dunno if thats just me though.
Blu-Ray movies will definately drop in price over the coming months, the Japanese are extremely good at streamlining processes and Hi-Tech industries, but your correct that this isnt 100% guarenteed but im willing to say around 90% sure there will be some nice price cuts to hardware and production costs in the coming months.
Brad @ Jan 5th 2008 7:04PM
With cable companies offering HD movies On Demand the day they're released on DVD, I couldn't care less about either format. The future is HD On Demand. Not BR or HD DVD
Tim Parsons @ Jan 5th 2008 7:59PM
alot of people are still gonna prefer the Physical hard copy on DISC ,.
On demand and Download service have a LONG ,. LONG way to go b4 they become the norm for the average everyday person,.
and alot of these cable/satellite providers can't even provide Artifact free SD on demand channels much less HD as it stands yet.
Brad @ Jan 5th 2008 8:11PM
I'm not sure who your cable provider is, but the bigger companies (Comcast, Time Warner, etc.) provide TONS of uncompressed, HD movies On Demand; with some cities already getting HD movies the day they are released on DVD with the rest of the country getting this feature by the end of '08
Imbro @ Jan 6th 2008 5:13AM
@Brad
I'm not a US citizen but I know that you're talking out of your ass. Uncompressed HD movies demands around 500gigs per hour. No company can deliever anything like this, much less through cable. From european cable/satelite (hd) providers though I can tell they all deliever heavilly compressed 720p signals that could probobly fit on a dual layer dvd. I would be surprised if they do any different in the usa.
And HD on demand? Forget it. Atleast not the real-time streaming kind. You'd need an actual 25mbps download. And don't confuse this with an ISP advertising 25mpbs download speeds.
Zombie Huggles @ Jan 6th 2008 7:51PM
I don't know, maybe it was an isolated incident, but when I tried to watch On-demand with my cousin, we had much trouble and no success. My point, it's easier to slip in a disk than worry about cable problems. Also, I don't believe they allow for the entire library of Bluray movies...so what happens when that exact movie I want to watch isn't available? And what happens when i want to watch a new movie at a friend's house without cable? A hard-copy just makes things easier. I consider "on-demand" more of a rental business.
Starfire @ Jan 5th 2008 8:11PM
I'm looking forward to the day when I go down to the local video shop and rent a movie on blu-ray. One viewing's usually enough for me anyway. This will all make the PS3's blu-ray playing ability more desirable, though I assume that really cheap players will come out at some point which will lessen this advantage. But not for now and Sony's strategy seems to have worked!
carl @ Jan 5th 2008 8:48PM
Do I dare to say Hulk Hogan Movies from New Line Cinema?!?!?! Suburban Freakin Commando!!!!
Oh please give me TMNT, Boogie Nights, American History X, and the King of Kong. Im also happy we are getting Be Kind, Rewind, Harold and Kumar, Voltron, Semi-Pro, Friday the 13th remake, and Gears of War the Movie. (The Irony is AMAZING!!)